Watch highlights as Girona register their first Champions League victory after a dominant display against Slovan Bratislava.

Girona’s goalkeeper, once of Gillingham, saved three penalties against Athletic in a game that defied belief “I don’t remember a game like it,” Paulo Gazzaniga said. And nor does anyone else. Nobody had done done what he had just done: not his brother Gianfranco, not his dad Daniel, goalkeepers like him, not anyone, not here. “Incredible,” Michel Sánchez called it; Ernesto Valverde went for “farcical”. When Girona and Athletic’s coaches embraced at the end of a sunny Sunday afternoon, the last of 27 shots having finally settled a chaotic game in Catalonia, a 99th-minute winner from the best striker Montilivi has seen still overshadowed by three that didn’t go in, Valverde wore a shrug and a smile that said silly, innit. Which is was. It was also brilliant. And bad. And fun, which football’s meant to be. Continue reading...

There was penalty drama in La Liga on Sunday afternoon as Girona got the better of 10-man Athletic Bilbao in Catalunya thanks to the heroics of a former Premier League star

Dutch international Donny van de Beek has had a tough few years but left Mancheter United for Girona in a cut-price move and has returned to Champions League action

Watch highlights as Feyenoord beat Girona 3-2 in the Champions League, in a match that featured two own goals and two saved penalties at the Estadi Municipal de Montilivi.

Enrique says Dembélé must ‘respect expectations’France international has four goals in seven appearances Arsenal have been dealt a boost on the eve of their Champions League clash against Paris Saint-Germain after Luis Enrique confirmed Ousmane Dembélé has been axed from his squad. Dembélé has scored four times in six Ligue 1 matches for PSG this season and played in the French club’s Champions League opening-match win against Girona earlier this month. But manager Enrique revealed the 27-year-old France international, seen as the club’s biggest asset in the post-Kylian Mbappé era, has not travelled to London. Continue reading...

Donny van de Beek joined Girona from Manchester United in the summer transfer window - but the move is yet to work out for the Dutchman, who is struggling to find fitness

PSG 1-0 Girona, Club Brugge 0-3 Borussia DortmundSparta Prague sink Salzburg on return to top table An embarrassing late blunder from Girona goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga gifted Paris Saint-Germain a 1-0 home win, denying the Champions League debutants a point. After relentless PSG pressure, Nuno Mendes’s low ball across the goal looked comfortable for Gazzaniga, but he let it slip through his grasp and into the net in stoppage time, for an own goal that earned the hosts a victory that was deserved on the balance of play. Continue reading...

Watch PSG's last-minute winner as the ball slips through Girona goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga's hands at the Parc des Princes.

Watch highlights as Nuno Mendes' last-minute goal, courtesy of a Paulo Gazzaniga error, seals a win for PSG against Girona in their opening Champions League match at the Parc des Princes.

Potters stand 13th, after two wins and three lossesPelach has worked at Huddersfield and Girona Stoke City have set their sights on appointing the Norwich first-team coach Narcís Pelach as their manager after being granted permission to hold talks with the Spaniard about succeeding the sacked Steven Schumacher. Pelach joined Norwich as part of David Wagner’s staff last year and was retained by Johannes Hoff Thorup, who was appointed in May. Pelach previously worked with West Brom’s head coach, Carlos Corberán, at Huddersfield Town, where he twice took interim charge. The 36-year-old has also worked as an assistant at La Liga side Girona. Continue reading...

Teenager sets side on way to 4-1 victory at GironaBarça have won all five league games this season Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal struck twice in the first half to help deliver a commanding 4-1 win at Girona on Sunday that extended their perfect start to La Liga’s season with a fifth consecutive win. Yamal gave Barça a two-goal lead with strikes in the 30th and 37th minutes while Dani Olmo extended their advantage right after the break with a first-time effort from close range. Continue reading...

New coach has not put a foot wrong and is reaping rewards from integrating himself into Catalan club and culture First he went to the Costa Brava, visiting the small, picturesque towns of Llafranc and Calella de Palafrugell. Next he was in Sant Quirze del Vallès, taking the staff to Masia Can Ferran, a restaurant favoured by Pep Guardiola and Xavi Hernández where they have served traditional Catalan cuisine since 1949. Then he was back in Barcelona for the Diada, Catalonia’s national day which commemorates the fall of the city in 1714. And on Sunday Hansi Flick’s Catalan week will be complete when he travels to Girona, home of Carles Puigdemont, the Generalitat’s president in exile, for the derby. “Flick is integrating into the country, the city and the club, and he it was who said he wanted to experience this day that’s so special in Catalonia,” Barcelona’s president, Joan Laporta, said after his coach joined the club delegation laying a floral offering at the statue of Rafael Casanova i Comes, the conseller en cap (mayor) injured during the siege 310 years ago. “A round of applause for Flick,” wrote one nationalist newspaper, “next step, speak Catalan in press conferences, but let’s not hurry him”. Applause? Ten days earlier, at the Lluís Companys Olympic stadium on Montjuïc hill, they had sung his name. Continue reading...

A day of debuts in Madrid brought 3-0 victories for Atlético and Real but shone the spotlight on men for whom the script had not been written. There were 140,000 people combined at the Santiago Bernabéu and the Cívitas Metropolitano, 16km and four and a half hours apart, watching Kylian Mbappé and Julián Alvarez play their first home games, but the World Cup winners who have dominated the buildup to the new season – and are on the back of shirts everywhere – were not the men who scored or took centre stage. Instead, a deflected Fede Valverde free-kick and late goals from substitutes Brahím Diaz and Brazilian teenager Endrick, also making his debut, took a flat-looking Madrid to victory over Real Valladolid. North-east of there, 20 minutes away by moped, where Conor Gallagher made his first Atlético appearance, a dynamic presence during his half an hour in the heat, Antoine Griezmann, Marcos Llorente and then an injury-time strike from Koke led his new side to a 3-0 win over Girona. Continue reading...